


Getting Along Nicely

by ClarySage



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Bug aliens, Loki is a crazy whore, M/M, Poor Tony, UST, no real plot, possibly m-preg later, total crack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2013-03-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:19:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClarySage/pseuds/ClarySage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will a jet fit through a drive-thru? Would Loki eat a Popsicle for five million dollars? Will Tony ever get his mind out of the gutter, and will Loki let him?<br/>Probably not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

Notes: The beginning is weirdly abrupt, I know.

 

Getting Along Nicely – ch.1

 

“Aliens.” Thor told his brother, making a strange wiggling motion with his fingers that he thought accurately represented the insect-like creatures about to invade the planet.

“And how threatening are these aliens?” Loki demanded, not impressed. He stood on top of a car so that he could both dent the roof and look down on the Avengers, who were currently asking for his help.

“They want to eat the planet.” Tony put in helpfully, faceplate up and staring at Loki's legs because they happened to be rather shapely and at eye level.

“Hm. And by 'the planet', you do not simply mean all of the mortals?” The trickster asked hopefully.

“The actual planet.” Steve confirmed, not entirely pleased with the situation. “You know, the one you keep trying to take over.” 

Loki looked at his nails thoughtfully.

“I suppose that it would be in my interest to help you, then.” He decided eventually, hopping down from the car gracefully and avoiding looking at the sickeningly pleased grin on Thor's face. “Perhaps it will help stave off my boredom. Fine! Lead the way, I shall accompany you.”

They got about three feet towards the waiting Quinjet before the inevitable happened.

“Dude. Thor. Your sister is hot.” Tony whispered, nudging the Asgardian with his elbow. The alien scouting party they'd just staved off (with Loki's help, since he was in the area. Hence the probably misguided invitation to team up.) had attacked without warning and Tony had been fairly well on his way to getting utterly, completely drunk. Thor looked down at him in confusion.

“I do not have a – oh.” He paused, a frown drawing his brows together. “I do not think you should speak of him thus.” 

Tony grinned, producing his favourite pair of tinted shades from somewhere and putting them on so that he could stare at Loki's ass without the trickster catching him. Loki walked in front, swinging his hips slightly in a way that said he knew exactly what was going on back there.

“Just look at those legs, man. Seriously.” Tony sighed. Thor tried not to think of his very attractive brother in such a way and mostly succeeded. Mostly. “How pissed would you be if I hit that?”

“If you tried to hit him, I suspect he would spend several hours killing you.” Thor warned solemnly, watching Loki board the Quinjet nonchalantly, sitting in the copilot's seat and leaning back comfortably. Nobody dared ask him to move, so it was silently agreed that Tony was driving. If he could see straight enough not to fly his suit into a wall, chances were he could do the same with the jet.

“Guh.” Tony said eloquently. “Never mind.” He considered that it probably wasn't worth the effort of attempting to explain what he meant when it was likely to earn him a Mjolnir-shaped dent in his face anyway. He sat down next to Loki instead and spent the next minute staring at the trickster's spidery fingers drumming against his thigh. Eventually Clint punched him in the back of the head and Loki smirked.

“Dad, stop staring at mom. I wanna go home.” Clint whined.

“Can we stop for cheeseburgers on the way?” Bruce asked hopefully, sitting at the back and pulling on yet another non shredded pair of jeans and a tasteful Avengers t-shirt with a huge 'A' emblazoned on the chest. Thor perked up at the mention of cheeseburgers and Tony's stomach made a strange growling noise that almost sounded like the word 'help'. 

“Salad.” Natasha muttered, doing her best to ignore them all and staring out of the window, casually taking a gun apart and cleaning it.

“Tofu?” Steve asked, to which Clint gave him a look of pure disappointment.

“What're you having, babe?” Tony asked the very dangerous, not-entirely-sane god sitting next to him.

“Your intestines on a plate if you dare call me that again.” Loki replied, sliding his extremely green eyes over to Tony.

“Cheeseburger it is!” The industrialist announced cheerfully, starting up the jet and then realising that they were, in fact, in a jet. This did not bother him as much as it perhaps should have. “Ok, bets on whether this thing will fit through a drive through, ten dollars says I can do it.”

Loki stared at him blankly, wondering why none of his team mates had locked him up for his own good yet. They all seemed sadly used to this behavior.

Perhaps, he mused, the next few weeks would be more interesting than he had imagined.

TBC


	2. 2

The jet did in fact fit through the drive-thru, in a manner of speaking. Most of the building was destroyed in the process but that was of little concern to Tony Stark, who had been nowhere even approaching sober at the time.

Loki had very much enjoyed all the destruction and had consequently decided that Tony Stark was rather interesting for a mortal and would therefore be his entertainment whilst he stayed at the Avengers mansion. The other members of the team survived day to day with their sanity mostly intact purely because they tended not to question this sort of thing – or indeed scrutinize it too closely. They appeared quite happy to have Tony unwillingly distract their unstable house-guest.

This all worked very nicely for about twelve hours, at which point Tony Stark did something he regretted with every fibre of his being.

He sobered up.

Upon waking up with an almost cataclysmic hangover, Tony rolled over with a sound of pure suffering and opened his bleary eyes to come face to face with the smiling God of Mischief, who was in his bed. He shrieked in an extremely unmanly fashion and leapt up, pointing at Loki and gaping silently as he tried to come up with any sort of explanation for why this was happening to him. He couldn't remember much beyond something about cheeseburgers and Loki standing on a car being arrogant and crazy, which was nothing out of the ordinary. Anything beyond that and leading up to Loki being in his bed – naked – was a blank.

“Good morning.” Loki purred, greatly enjoying the distress Tony was currently going through, as well as the fact that even in a moment of utter panic the industrialist was still managing to eye up his legs.

“You. You're naked. You're in my bed, being naked.” Tony said in a slightly hysterical voice, hurriedly yanking on the sweatpants he found draped from one of his expensive, stylish upright lamps. He did not want to know how they had gotten there.

“Am I?” Loki looked down at himself, all false innocence and porcelain skin, and his green eyes widened in a very good semblance of being surprised.

“Har har. Ok, what happened? Did I-? Did we-?” Tony trailed off, twirling one finger in a circular motion that he hoped accurately depicted whatever sexual deviancy had taken place during the night. Loki watched his finger, eyes following it like a cat following the movement of anything smaller than it, then looked back into his eyes with a puzzled expression.

“Are you asking if I waited until half an hour ago to sneak in here, throw your clothes about, delete the security footage of this room for the past twelve hours and lie down next to you, naked?” The trickster asked, all angelic innocence that made Tony want to wring his pretty, pretty neck.

“Yes.” Tony said hopefully. “Please tell me you did that. Did you do that?”

Loki stretched, apparently having absolutely no shame at all. Tony supposed that came with being utterly batshit crazy. The god got up from the bed and slinked over to him, draping himself over the engineer's shoulders and laughing breathily into his ear as he went completely rigid.

“I might have.” Loki murmured, breath tickling Tony's ear and giving him the strange desire to blow Loki up with something and also throw him down onto the bed for a possible round two – both at the same time. “Then again,” Loki continued, tracing long, clever fingers over one tense shoulder and letting his smile morph into something much more shark-like. “I might not.”

And he vanished, leaving Tony to stumble forward a couple of steps and sit down so that he could spend the next hour quietly freaking out.

XxXxX

The settlement for the repairs on the McDonalds he'd totalled turned up on his desk the next morning, along with a very attractive blonde woman with fishnets and very red nails. She was actually sitting on his desk when he walked in, not that he minded. He needed something to take his mind off the fact that he might well have sexed up Thor's crazy little brother. Sometimes, he thought, his powers of sexual magnetism were a burden.

“Special delivery?” He grinned, lowering his tinted shades and leering at her. She crossed her shapely legs and red lips curved into a flirtatious smile.

“Something like that.” She told him in a way he found strangely familiar. Of course it was Loki fucking with him, as seemed to be his sole purpose for the last twenty four hours. Of course he didn't figure this out until she was on her back on the desk, giggling, and he was kissing her lovely, soft neck. More accurately, it was when he pulled back a little to get a better look at her face (because that had most certainly not been the first thing he'd zeroed in on) and found a pair of inhumanly green eyes staring back at him. He scrambled back like she was made of something radioactive.

“Loki?!” He yelped, hyperventilating a little because this whole thing was disturbing and he wasn't even going to be allowed to screw around with random women who found their way into his office now, because they might be Loki.

“Mm-hm.” Loki shifted back to his usual form, but was still wearing the fishnets, for reasons beyond any human comprehension. The skirt he/she had previously been wearing had become some sort of weird Norse kilt, but that really wasn't what Tony found himself staring at.

“Can you make an appointment next time?” Tony frowned, heart not really in the whole being angry thing because those legs.

“Your whores must book in advance?” Loki raised an eyebrow, and Tony wondered what he'd done to deserve this. It was probably more karma from the weapons manufacturer thing.

“Does Thor know you're here?” He asked, watching Loki, still sitting on the edge of his desk, laugh in a way that sent shivers through him.

“Does my brother know that I am sitting upon Tony Stark's desk, at his office, wearing these?” He plucked delicately at the fishnets and then looked up at Tony through his eyelashes, smirking wickedly. “No, but I shall be sure to inform him directly if it pleases you.” 

And he vanished. Again. Tony stood still for a long moment as he processed what Loki had just zapped off to do, then dived for the phone to make a very awkward call. The next ten minutes were spent insisting to the actual God of Thunder that anything Loki said to him was, if not an outright lie, some sort of horrible half-truth that really painted him in very bad light, and he would never do any of the things Loki was probably about to turn up and imply he had done/would like to do.

The problem there being that while he wasn't exactly sure what many of those things were, he would probably still do them if Loki would stop trying to ruin his life for long enough. Staying un-Mjolnir'd would be nice too, though.

He really wasn't sure what his priorities should be lately.


	3. 3

Getting Along Nicely – part 3

 

Tony had come to a decision regarding Loki and felt much better for it. He definitely, one-hundred-percent wanted him. It had taken almost an entire week of Loki driving him crazy before he realized that he almost almost liked it. He had begun getting looks from the rest of the team, somewhere between confused and pitying, but he didn't care. He wanted Loki and there wasn't much that could sway Tony Stark once his mind was made up.

Of course, the moment Loki had noticed that Tony genuinely wanted him he immediately became much more evil. He spent the first day flirting with JARVIS in an attempt to make Tony jealous. It worked.

“I approve of your computer voice.” Loki told him, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his desk with a women's magazine across his lap. “He treats me with the respect I deserve.”

At least Loki understood what a computer was, unlike his brother. Thor tended to assume JARVIS was a magical entity who lived in the walls and refused to hear otherwise.

“I respect you,” Tony insisted, dragging his eyes away from Loki's chest. Loki had recently started wearing human clothes purely because he knew exactly what it did to Tony. Now there were two Asgardian gods wandering around his mansion in t-shirts and jeans, although Loki's were a lot tighter than Tony's blood pressure needed them to be. Also his t-shirt said 'Why So Serious?' but should probably have said something along the lines of 'oh look, I am exactly as slinky as you hoped I was under all that armor.'

“JARVIS?” Loki purred, looking back down at the story he was reading about a middle-aged woman sleeping with her daughter's boyfriend and having a baby with a tail. “Do you think Stark respects me?”

“From his track record I doubt that, sir.” JARVIS replied.

“Traitor.” Tony muttered at the AI, who very much didn't care.

XxXxX

At the next team meeting Loki was wearing a shirt that was actually too big for him. Much too big. It kept slipping off one pale shoulder and Tony spent the entire meeting with his fingers twitching, making scary little grabby hands motions towards the trickster because he had no self restraint. The shirt said 'Stark Industries' on the front and Loki knew exactly what that did to the mortal he was currently tormenting from across the table.

Steve was giving them some encouraging pep-talk about the alien menace and the whole planet-eating thing and whatever new intel they had, which seemed to be mostly 'we'll know where they are when they attack something and then we can go beat them up'. 

Tony had dedicated about five percent of his mental faculties to listening to this and the rest to obsessing over Loki. He was getting puzzled looks from Thor every now and then but he couldn't bring himself to care, especially when Loki pretended to ignore him and the shirt slipped from his shoulder again. He didn't even try and pull it back up this time, just leant back casually and sipped at the cup of extortionately expensive coffee Tony had bought. 

There was the tiniest glow of green on Loki's shoulder and Tony only noticed it because he was staring creepily. He watched as little black lines began to appear, a tattoo drawing itself onto Loki's skin near his collarbone. The trickster had his eyes on Steve, pretending to pay attention to the meeting like everyone else except Tony.

The little tattoo fascinated Tony and he watched it appear, squinting to read the words that it was forming. It looked familiar. When it was finished he mouthed the words to himself as he read them and wondered abstractly how offended Steve would be if he interrupted his speech by leaping over the table and jumping the god of mischief, who was smirking around the lip of his coffee cup and still not looking at him.

The tattoo said 'Property of Stark Industries.' It even had the logo and a little barcode underneath. Tony gripped the table and tried to think about anything but licking it.

“Any questions?” Steve asked, regretting it the instant Tony raised a hand.

“Do you wear eye shadow?” He asked Loki out of the blue, watching the little lines of the tattoo vanish back into pale skin. This was one of a long list of things about Loki that he felt he needed to know. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing.

“Occasionally.” Loki answered easily. “It brings out my eyes.”

“Any relevant questions?” Steve clarified, relieved when Thor raised a hand instead of either of the two crazies at the table. Unfortunately, Thor had taken Tony's random question to mean that anyone was allowed to ask anything they'd been wondering.

“Hawkeye, I wish to ask you – how is it that you know in the heat of battle which of your arrows explodes? I had often wondered how you know the function of each one without pause.” Thor asked, all earnest and interested.

“They have little notches.” Clint told him, which was less advanced than most of them had expected but seemed to please Thor anyway.

“Your skill as an archer is most admirable.” Thor praised. He'd been in an even better mood than usual lately due to having his little brother around and not trying to kill any of them except maybe Tony.

“Guys, when I said any questions I meant questions about the-” Steve tried, cut off by Tony again.

“What do you eat?” He asked Loki.

“Much the same as you, I suspect.” The trickster answered. “Although I do not favour doughnuts as much as you seem to.”

“I think he's calling you fat.” Clint pointed out helpfully. “You should scratch his eyes out.”

Tony ignored him, which was usually wise.

“So you could eat a popsicle? Because I would pay you like at least five million dollars-”

“Tony.” Steve felt he should probably interrupt there, because if Loki took him up on his offer Stark Industries would become bankrupt very quickly. Knowing Loki, five million dollars for a popsicle would only be the beginning.

It was actually almost a relief when the aliens attacked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then the Avengers movie came out and ruined my theory about Clint's arrows having notches.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight squick factor here if you don't like bugs.

“What is this?” Tony asked, standing at the edge of a deep hole in the desert and looking down into it, kicking a pebble over the edge to see how far down it went. 

“A hole.” Clint supplied usefully. They all stood around looking down into the darkness for a few moments before Loki abruptly decided to shove Tony over the edge.

“Shit!” Tony yelped, fired his boot repulsors and wondered if Loki would have done that if he hadn't been in his suit. Probably. He flew back up level with them and glared at Loki while everyone else continued to look down into the darkness below. Loki made an elegant little hand movement and started licking demurely at the popsicle that appeared in his hand, green eyes on Tony, innocent expression firmly in place. He had a very pink tongue.

“Jarvis, record that.” Tony ordered, figuring he'd just saved himself five million dollars so it wasn't all bad. 

“Really, Sir?” Jarvis sounded less than impressed.

“Yes. Really. Do it.” Tony replied, and couldn't seem to peel his eyes away from Loki, who tilted his head, let his eyes slide half closed and licked a long swipe up the side of the melting treat. “I hate him.” Tony added.

“Is this really the time?” Steve folded his arms and looked sternly up at where Tony was hovering. “You remember that there are aliens trying to eat the planet out from under us, right?” The super soldier turned to Loki and gave him the same look, since it wasn't working on Tony in the slightest. Loki stared back at him impassively from behind his popsicle then smiled sweetly.

“My apologies, captain,” the trickster purred. “I was feeling rather...overheated.” He glanced at Tony, who accidentally forgot his repulsors for a moment and dropped three feet before they fired again.

“Are you well, brother?” Thor asked, all worried and brotherly and utterly missing anything going on between Tony and Loki. The trickster ignored him as usual, looked back at Tony.

“I shall endeavour to finish it quickly.” He said, then slid the whole thing past his lips. He gave a little murmur of appreciation and then drew the stick out, clean, a moment later. Tony zoomed in on the movement of his pale throat as he swallowed and made a noise that sounded very close to an electronically-filtered whimper.

Steve dragged a hand down his face, took a calming breath as Loki threw his popsicle stick over the edge of the abyss. They all saw Tony twitch with the urge to go catch it.

“Ok, good, aliens. Fighting aliens.” Steve reminded.

“That was gross.” Clint stage-whispered to Natasha, who raised an eyebrow at him. Loki licked his fingers clean, just to make everything that tiny bit worse than it already was for Tony.

“How do we get down there?” Bruce asked, and Steve considered hugging him in a manly fashion for being the only one of them with his mind in the right place. Before he could reply the world spun dizzily and they were at the bottom of the pit, stumbling and wondering what the heck just happened.

“You are most welcome.” Loki said in a bored tone, still licking his fingers nonchalantly.

“Uh. Right. Maybe some warning next time.” Steve looked up at where Tony was still up at the top of the hole, looking around for them. “Tony! Down here!” He shouted.

Unfortunately shouting appeared to be the wrong thing to do at the bottom of an alien hole filled with alien bugs. Little pinpricks of light abruptly started to appear from the darkness surrounding them, skittering, clicking sounds echoing threateningly.

“Does anyone else wish they'd never watched Starship Troopers?” Clint asked nervously, notching an arrow as various strange, oddly-jointed limbs began to become visible at the very edges of their circle of light. They bunched closer together, all except Loki. He wandered calmly over to an outcropping of rock and hopped up onto it, perching there and watching with mild interest.

“Oh, eww, those things are just...” Tony commented as he arrived in a blast of heat and light, and of course broke the tension and sent the insects rushing forward onto his team mates. He dove in and a moment later the writhing pile of creatures where his friends had been standing bulged, exploded outwards. Mjolnir came flying out of one side in a burst of crunchy severed insect limbs and the Hulk roared out the other, stomping and hitting the aliens with other aliens.

Loki sat on his rock and very casually disintegrated anything that came within five feet of him, leaving him the only clean thing in a large circle of yellow and green innards.

“How many of these things are there?” Clint shouted over the horrid crunching, squelching sounds of the Hulk just picking up giant bugs and squeezing them until they popped. They were fairly easy to kill, but there seemed to be a never ending stream of them coming out of tunnels in the darkness. The corpses were melting into goo and slicking everything with it, and Tony wondered how long it was going to take him to clean all of the slime out of the joints of his armour. He glanced over at his friends and considered himself relatively lucky, considering it was probably going to take a lot longer for Thor to get the stuff out of his hair.

“I could collapse the tunnels onto them,” Loki's purred voice came through clearly into Tony's suit, even though Loki had looked at the earpiece they'd offered him like it offended him.

“Yes! Yes, that would be massively helpful.” Tony called, punching a huge spider-like alien in the back of the head over and over again until it stopped twitching. “Do that.”

“Say please,” Loki's voice came through in a wicked laugh and Tony considered just picking up a handful of guts and throwing them at him, because he was way too clean and also infuriatingly smug.

“C'mon, Tinkerbell! Please! Please flatten the crap out of these-” Tony yelped, cut off by something that looked like a huge moth flying at his face. He back-pedalled in the air, not liking bugs at the best of times and blasting anything that moved, which was everything. He very much hoped Thor hadn't heard what he just called his brother, but it was marginally better than 'crazy whore', which had been his second choice.

“As you wish,” Loki stood up, raised his arms and started doing something complicated and magic-looking. It involved a lot of slithery hand movements and Tony decided he needed another camera to record what Loki was doing when he was too busy being attacked to do it himself. There was a flash of light, a rumbling that began to get louder and louder, and then an explosion of dust from the three tunnels leading out of the main crater. The endless stream of bugs stopped coming and they relaxed slightly, finishing off the ones that were left.

“Hulk hate bugs.” The Hulk rumbled, popping something that squeaked under one huge, green foot. The rest of them agreed, gradually standing up from amongst the slime and twitching limbs, covered in insect insides.

“This is so much worse than that thing with the giant rats,” Clint said in a shell-shocked voice, scraping most of the globs of filth from his face and stomping on something that twitched near his boot. Natasha nodded, silently agreeing.

“Well fought, brother.” Thor beamed, looking far too much like he'd just enjoyed being attacked by a huge swarm of horror. He shook something yellow and custard-like off Mjolnir, hair dripping with it.

Loki stared at him flatly for a moment before wandering over to the rest of them. He stepped delicately around the puddles of melting alien slime, not a drop on him.

“So if this is just one hive,” Steve looked around, eyes slightly wide. “How are we going to kill them all?”

“Raid.” Tony supplied, feeling twitchy. “Or flamethrowers. Or both. Jarvis, remind me to invent that.”

“Certainly, sir.” Jarvis replied flatly. Behind Loki the Hulk slowly downsized back into Bruce, who held his torn pants up with one hand and looked around himself in disbelief.

“Oh look,” he said, wiping slime off his bare chest. “All of my nightmares.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: Less plot (how?!) and more flirting.


	5. Chapter 5

It took around twelve hours to get all of the slime cleaned off his armor. Tony quite enjoyed the peace of it, down in his lab scooping lumps of what looked like rice pudding off his high-tech equipment. It was almost zen in comparison to what standing in a room with Loki could do to his blood pressure in under five minutes.

It took Thor about the same amount of time to get his hair back to its usual luxurious, shining mane, but this was partly his own fault considering he insisted on cleaning his hammer first, and then had to try not to kill Clint for making every single obvious joke about him cleaning his hammer. By the time he'd finished chasing the archer out of the crawlspaces his hair had dried to a fine crust of bug guts, but he took this fairly well and sang hearty tunes in the shower next to Clint's room until it was out.

It turned out to be good for his hair.

XxXxX

“You have a dinner meeting.” Pepper's voice said accusingly, echoing around Tony's lab. He hadn't even told her he'd forgotten about it yet, she just knew. That was what probably made her so good at her job, Tony decided – she expected the worst from him and planned accordingly.

“I know, I know.” He lied, glaring at the trickster across the cluttered room, who'd gotten bored and turned up an hour ago to wander around touching his suits in inappropriate ways with his long, spidery fingers. Any zen calmness left in the room evaporated the moment he appeared and Tony began actively considering how much trouble he'd be in if he just leapt over the workbench and had his wicked way with Loki. On the pros side of the list Loki was crazy enough that he probably screwed like a rabid weasel. On the cons side, he had a big brother whose main talent other than looking like every heavy metal album cover was killing things with a hammer. Speaking of hammer...

“You're not getting out of it, Tony. You two need to discuss who gets this contract.” Pepper nagged in her special talking-to-Tony-Stark voice.

“But I hate him. He's like everything I just scraped off my suit, wrapped up in a human skin.” Tony whined, trying not to sound like he was whining. He wiped his hands on a cloth and noticed that Loki had started paying more attention to the conversation now that it involved Tony having to do something he didn't want to do. He was also still running his clever fingers over the chest plate of one of the half finished suits, licking his lips in a way that made Tony want to throw a wrench at him because it was just evil.

“Would you rather give him the contract?” Pepper was clearly raising her eyebrows on the other end of the line. He liked knowing that much about her. It was like having a sister. A sister he'd once dated who controlled most of his finances and tried to make him look a lot more responsible than he actually was to his shareholders. 

“No.” Tony decided, as petulant as he was willing to be with Loki in the room molesting everything he could get his hands on. “But I hate him. And I don't want to be in a room with him.”

“Tough.” Pepper's voice told him. “Happy will be over to pick you up at seven, behave yourself.” 

“I will behave myself! I always behave myself!” Tony claimed, and even Loki raised a fine brow in disbelief.

“Of course you do.” Pepper was definitely giving a strained smile, he knew it. She did that a lot. “Just be there and be civil and don't do anything that means I have to give the PR department another raise because it'll be coming out of your pocket money.” She disconnected with a click and suddenly Loki was sitting on the worktop in front of him, one long leg crossed over the other.

“Are we going somewhere?” The trickster god asked, lips curved in a smile that was doing Tony's blood pressure no favours.

“No. Not 'we'. You are not going anywhere because you're evil and crazy.” Tony backed away a step, pointing a screwdriver at Loki as he spoke. “I have to sit through a meal with Justin Hammer, human slime, and you're just going to make everything ten times worse if you come along. And Pepper will kill me.” 

Loki tilted his head to the side slightly, long hair brushing his throat in a way that he probably knew all about. He slid down from the worktop and closed the gap between them until the head of the screwdriver was brushing his cheek, turning minutely into the touch and still smiling darkly.

“Would you not like to be...distracted...from this acquaintance you so dislike?” Loki purred, reaching up and using one long finger on Tony's hand to direct the screwdriver, the point of it travelling slowly down his throat.

Tony's brain short-circuted.

“Distracted?” He muttered, eyes flicking between where Loki was actually touching his hand to where the cold metal tip of the screwdriver was making its way down the dip between the trickster's pale collarbones.

“Mmh,” Loki's low voice was a breath of temptation. “I can be ever so distracting, Stark.”

“You can.” Tony agreed wholeheartedly, cursing the fact that Loki was wearing a shirt (which he found himself doing more of the time than he would have expected), as the screwdriver made its way over the trickster's chest, towards the slender planes of his stomach.

“I would be very grateful...” Loki breathed, sliding his fingers under Tony's hand until they were pressed against the pulse point on his wrist, directing the cool metal point back up to his chest.

“The naked kind of grateful?” Tony asked hopefully, eyes fixed on the screwdriver, wondering if whoever named screwdrivers was thinking about sex or DIY at the time.

Loki slid the metal tip up his throat and tilted his head back, giving a soft sigh of 'perhaps.'

“I'm going to regret this.” The human claimed, musing that Loki could probably just go on TV, get a little closer to inanimate objects than he really should and take over the world that way. 

“Doubtlessly.” The trickster purred, stepping back and running his fingers along his throat where the screwdriver had just been trailing. “I shall be awaiting your driver.” He claimed with a smile, and vanished.

Tony looked down at the screwdriver in his hand, looked around the room in a slightly lost way and actually felt the waves of pity emanating from every piece of robotics in the workshop.

“Jarvis, I'm still a genius, right?” He asked, going back to staring at the screwdriver.

“At this very moment, sir?” Jarvis replied, and he supposed that was enough of an answer.

XxXxX

The rest of the team were thankfully out of the tower and so missed Loki's appreciation of the Phillips Head screwdriver. They were instead in Central Park, having accompanied their resident Thunder God on one of his weekly 'SHIELD-ling' training outings. Due to Thor's prowess in armed and unarmed combat he was regularly given groups of junior agents to hopefully teach something to. The rest of the team were sitting on a couple of benches watching, sharing a thermos of coffee.

“He's in a really good mood today.” Clint remarked, watching the scene before him.

“I guess having Loki around and on our side – sort of – is good for him. Plus he seemed to enjoy the thing with the bugs.” Steve replied, also watching the goings on over on the grass.

“Yeah, but...” Clint frowned. “He's buying them ice cream.”

Thor had called a break on showing the young agents new and exciting ways to pummel each other into the ground and had decided that it was time for a reward. He was currently sat on the grass with six junior agents in combat gear, all of them eating ice cream in the sun and listening to Thor tell them about various times he'd killed things in interesting ways.

“They seem to be enjoying it,” Natasha pointed out, sipping her coffee. Clint frowned again.

“He never buys me ice cream. I'm a Shield agent.”

Natasha turned her head and levelled him with a look that was very clearly her wondering how he'd survived so long.

“I'm just saying.” He muttered, going back to his coffee.

XxXxX

At seven o' clock sharp Tony crept outside, hoping something more interesting had come up and Loki had forgotten about wanting to go with him to his dinner meeting. Happy pulled up to the kerb and Tony shot for the car, getting in and buckling up before Happy had even gotten halfway around to open his door for him.

“You seem impatient to be off, perhaps you are looking forward to this evening after all.” Loki said from the seat next to him, and Tony wasn't even the slightest bit surprised.

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Justin Hammer and an intergalactic cock-tease, how could my night get any better?” He replied, telling himself firmly he wasn't going to stare at the finely tailored suit Loki was wearing. He failed almost instantly.

“And what exactly is this contract we are to secure?” Loki asked, ignoring his whining.

“New computer systems for everything from the police to public schools. Overhauling and upgrading, and it gets Pepper off my back for another month.” Tony explained, still staring. “THAT scarf? Really?”

Loki fingered the soft material of the scarf, looking down at it.

“It has sentimental value.” He said. Tony stared a moment longer.

“Did you kill a bunch of people in that scarf?” He asked, frowning worriedly.

Loki just smiled, green eyes sliding over to Tony while Happy got in and started the car.

“Looks like it's gonna be a good night,” Happy announced obliviously, switching on the radio.

XxXxX

Justin Hammer was taken with Loki immediately, which made Tony want to build weapons again and point every single one of them at the man, who shook the elegant trickster's hand for just a little too long.

“And who's this?” Hammer asked, smiling a smile that made Tony shudder. “I don't think we've met, I'd definitely remember.”

“I am most certain you would,” Loki replied in his low purr of a voice, taking his seat as the waiter pulled it out for him. “I am Loki. I had heard much about you from Stark, I thought that I should take the opportunity to meet the man he has spoken so highly of.”

Tony sat down and tried to figure out where Loki was even getting this stuff. He was pretty sure he'd never even mentioned Hammer until Pepper had called.

“Oh yeah?” Hammer seemed delighted, grinning at Tony and then leaning closer to Loki, whose amused green eyes followed every movement. “We go way back. So are you a colleague of his? I don't think he's ever mentioned you.”

Loki affected a slightly wounded expression and turned to Tony, all large eyes and pale skin.

“You have never spoken of me to your friend?” He virtually pouted. “It pains me that you think so lowly of me.”

“Hey!” Tony pointed a fork at the trickster and then abruptly lowered it, not sure his heart could stand another display, especially in the middle of a restaurant. “I hate him, for the record, and as for you, what do you want me to say? 'Hey Justin, buddy, you'll never believe who threw a freakin' car at me today.' Yeah, no.”

Loki teared up, and Tony considered using the fork he was clinging to to stab himself in the thigh, just to remind him through the medium of pain that Loki had the ability to turn the waterworks on and off like a tap.

“Don't listen to him,” Hammer put in, having no immunity at all to Loki's considerable charms. “He's not exactly Mr Sensitive.”

The tears vanished and Loki leant in to the poor sap, lips curved darkly.

“And are you?” He breathed, fingers finding Hammer's tie and running down it lovingly. “Sensitive?”

Tony thanked the gods – probably Odin – when the waiter arrived with their food and Loki had to temporarily draw back from his full-on apparent seduction of Tony's least favourite person.

“Well, that was horrifying. Why are we even here?” Tony muttered, twisting pasta around his fork and stubbornly refusing to watch Loki eat at all, because he was in some strange, familiar place between wanting to throttle Loki and wanting to hit Hammer over the head with his plate and drag Loki off back to his tower like a true caveman. “Contracts. Right, computers.”

Hammer opened his mouth to begin arguing his reasons that he should get the contract, but Loki got there first.

“Oh, computers bore me so.” He sighed, raising his wine glass to his lips and looking at Hammer over the rim of it, making Tony pretty sure he wore mascara because no man should have eyelashes like that without chemical intervention. “I have heard that you build weapons, this is much more interesting.” The trickster claimed, licking his lips.

Hammer looked like his heart might stop for a moment and Tony felt a tiny pang of sympathy for him because he knew that feeling well.

“I...yeah, I make a few. Missiles, tanks,” Hammer waved a hand, trying to seem nonchalant. Tony chewed a large mouthful of spaghetti and watched Loki, wondering what he was up to.

“Tell me more,” the trickster encouraged, eyes darkening with lust.

“Well...there's guns, and explosives,” Hammer listed, jumping when Loki's hand found his knee under the table. Tony began to feel genuinely sorry for him.

“Explosives...” Loki breathed, fascinated. “How wonderful. And how big an area could you destroy with these?” He asked, and Tony wondered if he should be worried.

“I could wipe out a city if I wanted to.” Hammer lied, and Tony gave him a look because they both knew the best he could do was maybe a city block on a good day. Now TONY, on the other hand, could take out a city in his sleep if he ever chose to start building weapons again, which he probably would if he had to spend much more time with Loki.

Loki's clear green eyes widened in awe and he bit his lip, looking like he wanted to just throw Hammer over the table and have him right there.

“An entire city? What power you have at your disposal,” Loki almost moaned the word 'power'. “What need have you of such dull things as computers when you have such glorious weapons?”

Right. Tony stared at the pair of them flatly. And surprise surprise, Hammer utterly fell for it.

“I...guess I don't.” He said, as though he was seeing the light for the first time. “You wanna see some explosions? I have a testing facility.”

Loki looked delighted, sliding to his feet and drawing Hammer up with him. 

“I should love to.” He smiled, glancing down at Tony and for a moment giving the most wicked, smug expression Tony had ever seen on anything. The trickster leant down, breath a cool whisper against Tony's ear. “I seem to have won you your contract.” He breathed.

“Yay.” Tony replied, discovering the little-known fact that 'yay' is a hard word to growl through clenched teeth.

“I wouldn't wait up for him.” Hammer supplied helpfully, looking like he'd just won the lottery. 

“You're a lucky man.” Tony replied, dripping so much sarcasm he almost flooded the restaurant.

XxXxX

Things improved for Tony later, when Loki returned to the tower after only a couple of hours with no visible marks.

“How was your date?” He couldn't help asking, all kinds of bitter.

Loki shed his coat and scarf, heading for his room and pausing to look over at where Tony sat drinking at the breakfast bar.

“He was vulgar and I gave him frostbite.” Loki said, not sounding all that upset about it. 

As he slinked off to bed Tony felt a little better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments! I was reading too much angst and felt like some crack, so... Yeah.  
> I'm not sure what's going on with Clint, either. He's just sort of happening.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinking. And horses.

Thor was usually an all-round great guy, and this was generally agreed upon by everyone he met bar Loki. He only had three major flaws that Tony could think of – a tendency to believe whatever Loki was claiming if he teared up whilst saying it, a strange obsession with breakfast-related foods and the belief that any occasion, no matter how trivial, was cause to hold a celebration. He preferred feasts but could usually be coerced into settling for a night of drinking if the rest of the Avengers felt the occasion didn't quite call for the full spread of Roasted Every Type of Animal.

Thor had held these hearty Viking-style celebrations for such events as Clint testing negative for rabies after being bitten by a raccoon during a mission, Tony managing to stay awake for three days straight and Steve being recognized in the street by someone under seventy years old. The main problem seemed to be that nobody had the heart to say no to Thor because he was so enthusiastic and likeable, which was for the most part what Loki seemed to hate about him. That and the way Thor had a habit of grabbing him by the back of the neck like a misbehaving cat during serious battles.

Tony considered Thor's constant need for 'ale' (which in Thor language meant 'any type of alcohol') to be a major contributing factor to his drinking problem. Loki was fast becoming another one, but he just couldn't refuse Thor's crinkly-happy blue eyes and perfect hair. This was why he found himself outside the room Loki had taken as his, helping Thor take the screws out of the hinges so that they could get Loki to drink with them. Loki had refused and slammed the door on them so they'd started without him, promptly deciding that something as weak as a door was not going to stand in their way.

Thor had wanted to smash it. Tony began to think this might be a good idea considering the way the screws they were unscrewing were re-screwing themselves. It hurt to even think that, let alone see it happen.

“Brother, you must drink with us!” Thor bellowed yet again. The reason Loki apparently had to be there was that they were celebrating the temporary alliance between him and the Avengers. This had been Tony's idea. Thor had wanted to have the celebration be dubbed 'Brother Has Not Killed Anyone (That We Know Of) In Over A Week.' Everyone else had gently persuaded him that this might actually cause Loki to go out and kill someone, and Thor had helpfully relinquished the idea after several 'ales'.

“You know what?” Tony sat back and cradled his screwdriver, which was one of his most prized possessions since it had gotten closer to Loki than he had. 

“Nay.” Thor sat next to him, both staring at the door like it held the answers to all life's mysteries. Or at least the ones about Loki.

“We should break it down. By 'we' I mean 'you', Goldilocks.” Tony had reached the wonderful point in his night of drinking where he no longer cared about property damage, the same state in which he'd been during most of the testing process for his suit. 

“I agree!” Thor stood up, looking pleased to be allowed to smash something inside the house instead of being sent outside to do it. 

“I knew you would.” Tony sat back, sipped his drink and watched. 

Thor drew back his arm full of bunched up muscles bigger than Tony's head, gave a mighty roar and fell flat on his face as Loki casually opened the door.

“Nice.” Tony commented, looking up at the elegant trickster. Loki joined him in a silent moment of watching Thor pick himself up off the floor, tripping over his cape.

“That man is going to be a king one day.” Loki said flatly, just loud enough for Tony to hear.

“But not today.” Tony stood up, held up his Martini to the ceiling. “Nice work there, Odin.”

“Brother!” Thor finally managed to stand up straight and noticed Loki, who looked down his nose at the thunder god. “You must drink with us!”

“And if I do not?” Loki answered, eyes sliding over to the screwdriver in Tony's pocket with a smirk, which Tony pretended not to notice.

Thor frowned, thinking. A moment later his blue eyes lit up and he smiled widely, raising the mug of ale he seemed to have produced out of the ether.

“This celebration is in your honour, brother. The mortals must hear many tales of your exploits! I am sure you would rather they hear them straight from the _horse's_ mouth, rather than my interpretations.” Tony didn't miss the emphasis Thor put on the word 'horse'. Neither did Loki.

“There are certain 'tales' better left unmentioned.” Loki growled slightly, which did all sorts of things to Tony.

“Then perhaps it would _behoove_ you to be there, brother. I know not which of your escapades I should speak of.” Thor grinned, and Tony got the feeling he was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for.

“Escapades. I like the sound of that.” The industrialist decided, slyly closing Loki's door to stop him retreating back into his room. Thor nodded, gently herding Loki toward the kitchen. The trickster allowed it, looking put upon.

“Aye, man of iron. My brother has had many adventures. I am sure he will tell you about them until he is _hoarse_.” The thunderer claimed, ducking the icy knife that came flying at his head as though he'd been doing it all his life.

XxXxX

Once they'd gathered the others they all sat on the floor around Loki's chair for story time, which was weird to everyone sober. That meant Steve and Loki, who was working on it. The trickster had made himself what looked like a tequila sunrise and sipped it through a straw, eyes on Tony the whole time.

“They're doing that thing again.” Clint whispered as loudly as he could to Natasha, who shrugged.

“Now, children.” Loki smirked, “Who would like to hear of the time Thor dressed as a woman, loathe though I am to remember it at all?”

Thor grinned and put his hand up along with the others.

“I'm guessing this was your fault somehow.” Tony predicted, staring at the trickster god who smiled innocently.

“Oh? It is not ALWAYS my fault, Stark.” He claimed.

“Yes it is.” Tony insisted.

“Aye,” Thor agreed. “T'was indeed his fault.”

XxXxX

The night progressed with tales of Loki and Thor's exploits, with everyone getting steadily more drunk except Steve, who was immune to alcohol. He never regretted that more than after the first hour of Thor's seemingly endless number of tales about his hammer. This continued up until the moment Loki seemed to get bored and announced that if he had to listen to one more 'Mjolnir Story' he was going to kill himself and take everyone else with him.

“Shall we hear another of your escapades instead, brother?” Thor grinned. “Whatever DID happen with that horse, anyway?”

“What happened is that if you ever speak of it again I shall destroy this entire building with you in it.” Loki replied, glaring drunkenly.

“Tell me the horse myth is true.” Tony said, putting his hands together and staring at the ceiling. “C'mon, Odin. Help me out here.”

“This belongs on the darkest corners of the internet.” Clint said, downing the last of his drink and making a face. Natasha patted him on the back sympathetically. 

“I promise, I'll be _really_ good next year.” Tony continued, still praying to the ceiling. 

“You're getting Odin mixed up with Santa again.” Steve tapped Tony on the shoulder, wondering if he honestly couldn't get drunk or if he just hadn't been trying hard enough.

“But you did it with a horse though, right?” Tony asked Loki, all hopeful. “This can be my combined birthday and Christmas present.”

Thor scratched his beard and glanced at his brother, who was staring down at Tony and twirling the little umbrella from his cocktail in his fingers.

“I would advise against thinking such thoughts of my brother, Man of Iron.” Thor said, raising his ale.

“Are you seriously doing the protective big brother thing? With _him?_ ” Clint pointed at Loki, who smiled at him.

“Nay.” Thor shook his head. “My brother is extremely high maintenance. I fear Stark would not survive him.”

Tony spent a long moment staring at Loki, seemingly considering this, before he downed the rest of his drink and decided to throw his lot in with Satan.

“I dunno,” he said, “I'm pretty rich, pretty drunk most of the time and I kinda think it'd be worth it.” He leered at Loki, who made another cocktail appear with a wiggle of his fingers and looked down his perfect nose at the human.

“You do not seem to properly appreciate having your spine aligned correctly. Shall I teach you why you should?” Loki said mildly, stirring whatever girly concoction he'd magicked up for himself.

“Are you offering to put me in traction? Because I've had some pretty wild nights...” Tony grinned.

“He's going to die.” Natasha predicted, drinking vodka straight from the bottle because she had a reputation to uphold. Clint nodded in agreement.

“I am offering to actually remove your spine, knot it and put it back in.” Loki clarified.

“Adventures in biology. I'm up for that.”

While they'd been arguing Bruce had gotten up and wobbled over to get Thor and himself another drink. He handed the thunderer his and sat back down on the floor next to Tony, since Loki was the only one who actually had a chair.

“I suggest you hold your tongue, man of iron. You have too few legs for my brother's tastes.” Thor piped up, attempting to look completely serious. Bruce giggled into his beer.

“My sexual history is not solely confined to beasts, you oaf.” Loki glared down at his blonde brother, who raised his mug in a toast.

“True, brother, for did I not catch you once with your own shade?” Thor looked happy, and Steve sat on his other side wondering if this is what passed for family bonding time in Asgard.

“What's a shade?” Clint asked Natasha.

“I think he makes copies of himself. I thought he'd have better uses for them to be honest.” She replied, passing Clint the bottle.

“You can do that?” Tony stared at Loki for a moment and then turned to Thor. “He can do that?”

“I would far rather bed my own shade than one of the hideous wenches _you_ so favoured.” Loki glared at Thor, although the glare was less effective due to the layers of drunkenness between them that it had to pass through.

Thor took no offence at this, because it was pretty hard to offend Thor. He laughed heartily instead.

“Tis true, the women here on Midgard are far less sturdy than the bar wenches of Asgard!” He announced.

“Try a horse?” Clint piped up from the back. This seemed to remind Tony about the whole point of the conversation and he scooted forward until he was sat cross-legged at Loki's feet, staring up at him.

“So it's true, right?” He asked, looking hopeful.

“Well, children,” Loki stood up, brushing off his shirt. “I think it is far past your bedtime.”

Clint leant on Natasha as she helped him up, muttering darkly.

“It's not even a school night.”

Steve had to help Bruce and Thor, the three of them stumbling along with Steve in the middle like the world's most muscular, drunken chorus line. They were followed out of the door by Natasha supporting Clint, who had moved on to claiming Fury never let him stay up late either. Surprisingly Natasha was nodding along, agreeing with him.

Loki stood with his arms folded, watching in great amusement as Tony managed to get to his feet after a full minute of trying to get his knees to cooperate. Once the inventor was upright Loki took his arm, guiding him towards the door. Whether it was out of pity or simply to keep himself supported, Tony had no idea. He was happy anyway, since he had Loki's long, elegant fingers draped over his arm and the trickster's angular hip bumping into his now and then as they weaved their way out of the bar room.

“So, the horse thing...?” Tony piped up again once they were almost at his room, because when he wasn't inventing something spectacular he had a spectacularly one-track mind.

Loki opened the door to Tony's room and let Tony fall through it, smiling sweetly, then turned and left.

Tony chose to take that to mean it was true.


	7. Chapter 7

Loki apparently dealt with hangovers in a very different way to humans, Tony had found. 

Namely, he turned blue. 

They were all sitting around in the bar/lounge trying out different hangover cures and generally whining about their lives (except Steve, who was fine and not at all smug about it) when it happened.

“Uh.” Clint said, pointing at the newly-blue Loki, who was looking down at himself in a way that clearly stated he hadn't been expecting that to happen. Thor looked up from his fourth pop-tart, saw what had happened and got a distinctly deer-in-headlights look about him.

“What. What?” Tony asked blearily, raising his head from the counter and glancing around, noticing where everyone else was staring and following their shocked looks to Loki, who was completely blue and looking like he wasn't quite sure what was supposed to happen now.

Tony burst out laughing and fell off his chair.

XxXxX

The rest of the day was spent with Thor lamenting that he'd expected a lot more drama, crying and possibly an epic battle, which gave them all a strange little insight into how the mind of a god worked. Loki was sulking, though he was very slowly turning back to his regular pale self as his hangover headache abated. It was taking a long time, though, and Tony had spent the entire morning finding every single song he could with 'blue' in the lyrics and playing it until he'd been banished to his workshop by everyone with a hangover.

He could be heard down there singing gleefully, cutting off the lyrics to Blue (da-ba-dee) every now and then to crack up. Loki had not killed him instantly, so the others decided he secretly liked it.

As afternoon rolled on and everyone started feeling more human again (excepting the non-humans), Tony emerged from his lab and suggested they watch a movie, looking so pleased with himself that only Thor and Steve didn't instantly know he was up to something. Loki was sat on the couch in a corner, still slightly blue, and Tony couldn't look directly at him without bursting into high-pitched, hysterical giggling.

“Avatar.” Tony said, grinning. And even though Jarvis could just play any movie he wanted, Tony had somehow gotten copies of the DVDs for his films. He handed Avatar to Loki, who took one look at the creature on the cover and handed it to Thor.

“I am fairly certain I could turn your spine into bees if I tried.” Loki informed him casually. Tony handed him the box for the Smurfs movie.

“There's only one girl one.” He supplied, as though that was the entire plot of the film.

“Hmm.” Thor looked at the cover thoughtfully, having completely missed the joke because he was still quite hung over and wanted to watch a movie.

“Watchmen? Spoiler, the blue guy is naked.” Tony wiggled his eyebrows at Loki, who glared.

“I could turn your arc reactor into a sex toy and watch you die with it hilariously embedded in your chest like a sword.” Loki suggested in a wistful tone of voice that said he really wanted to do it.

“I think that's how the press expect me to go anyway.” Tony said. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Candy and a blue chick.” 

“You've been working on this all day, haven't you?” Bruce guessed. Tony tried to look innocent.

“Not at all.” Tony claimed. “I've been down in the workshop. Doing work. Looking at my blueprints.” He cracked up again, clutching at his arc reactor with one hand and giggling.

“Was that the reaction you were expecting to the whole frost giant thing?” Bruce asked, looking at Loki, who in reply simply glared flatly at where Tony was on his knees, wheezing. He let the inventor have about a minute more unbridled glee at his expense before deciding it was time Tony paid for it. Loki proceeded to do what he did best and widened his eyes slightly, teared up and clutched his hangover blanket just a little tighter.

“Uh-oh.” Clint muttered. Natasha nodded.

Tony looked up at the sudden silence, saw teary, innocent Loki and re-lived Thor's deer-in-headlights look.

“Don't give in, Tony. Come on, man, you can beat this.” Clint encouraged. Tony looked helplessly at him and then back to Loki's big, green eyes.

“You're strong, Tony.” Steve put in, patting him on the back. “You can win.”

Loki's lip trembled and the tears fell, trickling down his pale face. He wiped them away with a delicate, long-fingered hand and resumed his wounded staring.

“Fight it, Stark.” Natasha growled, clenching her fist in the air.

It was all in vain, though. Tony crawled over and climbed up onto the couch next to Loki, took his hand and looked into his eyes.

“We've lost him.” Bruce said, sighing. “The force is weak in this one.”

“Force?” Thor asked, looking confused and paying absolutely no attention to what Loki and Tony were up to, which was still staring and looking alternately wounded and apologetic.

“Star Wars?” Bruce said, seeing the utter lack of recognition in Thor's blue eyes. “You've never seen Star Wars.” He surmised.

“Seriously?” Clint frowned, patting Thor on the back sympathetically. “It's ok, big guy. We'll fix it.”

“Jarvis, Star Wars.” Natasha ordered, taking Thor's other hand and helping lead him towards the huge television as though not having shown him Star Wars before was a grievous sin and they were trying their best to make up for it. Thor went along happily, since he liked both stars and wars.

“Now remember,” Bruce said to Thor as they all sat down to watch, Steve choosing to remain silent about the fact that he also hadn't seen it. “This is not a documentary.”

You could never be too careful with Thor, who had absolutely no understanding of special effects.

Over on the other couch Tony was still staring into Loki's pretty green eyes, holding his trembling hand and trying to look as sorry as he could.

“I am a monster.” Loki said in a small, wavering voice. Tony pulled him gently in for a hug, stroking his silky hair and ignoring the way Clint got up to make popcorn and made a gagging motion as he passed them.

“You're not a monster, babe.” Tony insisted, hearing Loki sniffling against his shoulder. “I was just being a jerk. Is there anything I can do?” He asked.

“Oh, here we go.” Clint muttered. Over on the couch Natasha nodded, eyes still on the screen.

“Take me shopping.” Loki's voice was small and slightly muffled. “And to dinner.” 

“Anything you want.” Tony petted his hair again then realised what he was saying and drew back a little, looking down at Loki. “Oh, you're evil.” 

Loki gave him a winning smile and got up, brushing his clothes off.

“Do not forget to bring all of your credit cards.” He said, then wandered over to watch the film with the others. Tony sat on the couch trying to work out what had just happened to him.

“Not your proudest moment.” Clint walked past with a huge bowl of popcorn, going to sit next to Thor and Natasha. Tony wasn't sure Clint was right, seeing as he'd somehow just gotten a date with Loki, but he honestly couldn't figure out which of them had won that little exchange.


End file.
